


Patterns on the Ceiling

by Andrew_is_Gay



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Depression, Hurt No Comfort, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:27:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andrew_is_Gay/pseuds/Andrew_is_Gay
Summary: Leo can't stop the thoughts running around his head. It's too early in the morning, but he can't make himself sleep. (Triggering, for obvious reasons)





	Patterns on the Ceiling

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a couple of years ago. I'm posting it because it kept me from hurting myself and I hope it does the same for others. I've been sitting on it until I could edit it/ finish it (it originally was going to be longer) but I realized that I didn't want to touch it. It's raw, drawn largely from my experiences, and i didn't want to alter that. Thus, its a bit clunky, but i hope that can be overlooked. If it's recieved well, i might just pick up the story again, but for now I'm satisfied in just posting it. Please stay safe, please take care of yourself, and enjoy <3

Leo was on his bed, staring up at the ceiling like most nights. A piece of scrap metal was clutched in his hand, though he wasn’t tinkering with it. Instead, its sharp edges dug into his skin, causing small beads of blood to form along the cut forming as he rocked it back and forth across his palm in thought. Not that he noticed. No, now, Leo was uncharacteristically still and quiet, his eyes flicking every which way, making patterns out of the wood grain on the ceiling. 

It was early in the morning, that he knew. He could hear the engine humming softly through the wall, making the entire ship vibrate slightly. The sound was quiet and soothing to him, and his breathing was even. The last time Leo had checked, it was sometime around three thirty in the morning. Gods know what time it was now. 

Gods. He was so tired. So tired. He wanted to sleep so badly. Right now, if he closed his eyes, he would fall fast asleep and sleep in deep slumber until his alarm went off at six am. And yet.

He didn’t want to sleep.

He hurt so much, felt a deep dread that started out in his core and then radiated through the rest of his limbs until he could only lay there, making patterns in the wood grain on the ceiling and feeling this awful feeling that he felt.

It was a complete contradiction, he knew, but it was kind of hard to explain. 

Depression was hard to explain. 

Leo had known he’d been depressed for a few months. He had been depressed before he had realised it, he just didn’t know for how long. He couldn’t really remember if he’d ever been happy. He guessed he must have been at some point, but he never knew for sure if this was just a recent development or if he’d always had it. He’d dealt with it, shouldering his burden. 

Everyone in the seven was working hard to get the Athena Parthenos and stop Gaia, so he figured his little mental health problem could wait a bit. He could take it, and the others really didn’t need anything else to worry about. Some days it was harder to deal with it, but he always came out relatively unharmed.

So here Leo was, staring up at his ceiling, and finding patterns in the wood. Leo didn’t want to sleep just to get up the next morning. He didn’t want to feel the weight of the day on his shoulders as he tried to muster up the courage to get out of bed for thirty minutes in the morning, he just wanted to sleep. He just wanted to stop hurting.

_ Kill yourself. _

A voice in the back of his head whispered to him. It sounded just like him. Thoughts like these had started bubbling up from deep down after a few months on the quest. The first time it had happened he’d been working on a small project at his workbench in an attempt to dispel the ache in his heart. 

_ Kill yourself _ . It had told him.

It had made him freeze.  _ What in the Gods names was that _ . He had set down the project slowly. _ I never thought this would happen to me _ .

Leo had quickly left his room to be with other people, although he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Though he tried to hide it, he had acted aloof the entire evening, and Hazel and Annabeth noticed he was acting strange. Hazel had asked him if he was okay, but after a quick ‘I’m fine’ said with a smirk and a witty phrase, she left him alone. It hurt him how easily they accepted that.

That had been the first night he hurt himself.

_ Kill yourself. _

Gods, if only it were that simple. Half of him wanted to die, but the other, more rational part, said that one, it would probably hurt, and two, he couldn’t abandon his friends when they needed him to get the ship home. He didn’t much care how he did it, just as long as he safely delivered them to camp half blood he would be okay. 

When he had finally gone back to his room, he sat on his bed staring at all the machines surrounding him. 

_ Kill yourself. _ The voice told him. It was convincing for a moment.

_ But I don’t want to die _ , he protested. He felt trapped in his body, wanting to run far away from his problems but only able to sit and breath steadily on his bed.

As if his head was being pulled by a string, he found his gaze drawn to a pair of shears laying on his workbench.  _ Pick them up and cut yourself. _

He stood up, turning away so he couldn’t see it.

Leo could see it in his head so clearly. Picking them up and dragging the blade across his skin. It felt like his skin was drawn towards the shears that he knew were about ten feet behind him.

_ Just turn around. _

He did. Mechanically, he moved to stand in front of his work bench. Everything seemed surreal to him. He picked up the shears, and it seemed like nothing else in the world mattered but them. He opened and closed the blades,transfixed.

_ Could I actually do it? _

He threw them onto the bench and turned away again.

He clenched his fists, tears forming in his eyes. Why was this so hard? He stood there for a long time, tears running down his face. He didn’t wipe them. Slowly he curled up on his bed and closed his eyes. 

All he could imagine was the blades running across his skin, over and over and over again. His eyes opened and he stood.

Hating himself, he picked the shears up and returned to his bed. He opened them and dragged them across the top of his hand. The ache in his heart deepened. It stung a little bit, but didn’t leave a mark.  _ huh. _

Leo wanted to do more. He pulled down his pants and kicked them off. He noted where his spongebob boxers ended, then lifted the hem of his left one. He made a light cut across his thigh. Then another, and another, until one big patch of his thigh had a constant stinging pain and his skin was pink. He closed the shears and set them beside him. He looked at his hand because it still stung, surprisingly.  _ Oh. _

It was bleeding. He knew that his scissors were exceptionally sharp, they had to be to cut heavier materials than paper, but he figured that he could safely run them across his skin without bleeding. Clearly he was wrong. If he had used normal scissors, he would only have irritated his skin, but he didn’t. That meant that his thigh was probably--

Bleeding. It wasn’t bleeding profusely, only a small amount right around each cut, but it still stung quite a bit. Swearing, he staggered to his small bathroom, making sure his boxers didn’t get bloody. _ This is what I gets for doing something so stupid. _ He took a clean(ish) towel and pressed it to his thigh. Gods that stung. Speaking of Gods, he couldn’t help but think that they were watching him and shaking their heads. Some hero he turned out to be.  _ How can I stop monsters from hurting me if I can’t even stop myself?  _ Tears ran down Leo’s cheek. Gods he hated himself for this. 

He sat down on the floor and curled up into a ball, still pressing the towel to his leg. His cheek was squished against the tile floor, but he was too tired to care about how gross that was. He started sobbing quietly, conscious of how thin he had built the walls. He was just tired.

When the bleeding finally stopped, he sighed and dropped the towel on the floor for the morning. Leo knew that he should get the blood out of it now while it was wet, but he was too tired. Leo of the future could deal with it. He fell face first onto his bed and curled up in a ball, silent tears rolling down his face as he fell asleep.


End file.
